


Sketches in the Sand

by actuallyfeanor



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2020-11-09 04:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20847359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actuallyfeanor/pseuds/actuallyfeanor
Summary: Here is a handful of moments. Glimpses of the end of the world. Rough sketches that could have been parts of longer tales. Characters forcing their way onto the page for a short while, to tell the story the waytheysaw it. Pretty much a collection of all the bits and pieces of Silmarillion writing that I didn't know where else to put. All chapters can be read independently of each other.1: Sam and Frodo, mirroring Fingon and Maedhros2: Crablor begins3: Crablor ends4: Nerdanel's grief





	1. Some Say The World Will End In Fire

The air tastes of ash and sulphur. He cannot tell how long he has been here, for dream and reality bleed into each other like blood into water. The floor is cold against his bare skin, and he feels strangely weak, though he cannot remember why. From somewhere below, the rough voices of the Enemy’s servants can be heard, speaking at times in a strange, unlovely tongue, at times in a language he can almost understand.

***

His body aches, and the orc raises his whip to strike again, when song drifts into the chamber from far away, a song of trees, of white jewels, of the stars above. The voice is familiar - a name tugs at the edges of his memory, but before the thought can take shape, the trapdoor is flung open, and a figure leaps through it, making straight for the orc, who has no time to parry the blow before its whip-hand is severed clean from its arm.

***

“Frodo! Mr. Frodo, my dear!”

So that is his name. For a moment he could have sworn he was someone else.

“Am I still dreaming?” he mutters. “But the other dreams were horrible.”

Blood in the water, blood on the battlefield, fire and shadow, Gandalf falling from the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, thousands upon thousands of dead, the jewel burns him - no, the Ring burns his hands, his mind - his throat is on fire from the drink they gave him.

The Ring. They took it. They must have.

“They took everything. Everything is lost.”

***

Step by step through the dry, arid land, and he drifts in and out of consciousness. He is a child, playing on the riverbank with his brothers and cousins. It reminds him of the Brandywine River, and yet it is strangely unfamiliar. His brothers - what happened to his brothers?

***

He puts the Ring on his finger, claims it for his own, and feels the earth move beneath his feet. Far away the Enemy howls in anguish, his plans coming undone before his eyes. Yet there is something awfully familiar about this. The chasm, the fire, the horrible feeling in his stomach as the knowledge sinks in. He has failed. The quest is at an end and he has failed. The Ring burns on his hand, and he lets it burn, wishes for it to consume him. Then a sharp pain blossoms in his hand, he is bleeding, the pain is everywhere and a body is tumbling off the edge of the cliff, but this time he is not the one falling. Instead he watches from the clifftop, watches as Gollum’s frail, worn figure is swallowed by the fire below.

***

His hand is bleeding heavily, but he is no longer weighed down by the burden he has carried for so long. Slowly he turns towards the figure waiting for him, his dearest friend, the one who came all this way with him. They did it. This time they won. This time the Enemy has been banished to the outer darkness, never to rise again. The name that has been hovering at the edge of his memory, finally springs into his mind.

“I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Fingon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to my Tumblr as a short piece based on the idea of Maedhros and Fingon reincarnated as Frodo and Sam


	2. This Broken Jaw Of Our Lost Kingdoms

There are forces in the world which we know nothing about. Forces beyond good, beyond evil. Ancient things, gnawing at the roots of creation. They simply are.

He burned. The Silmaril burned his flesh, and he could no longer stand it. Searing light bored into his mind, into its darkest corners, where he so carefully had stowed away the memories of the fallen. Dead faces in the water at Alqualondë. Whispering wraiths in the ruins of Doriath. Bloodstains not even all the water in the wide ocean could wash away.

_Traitor._

_Kinslayer._

_Play us another song, Makalaurë. Sing us to sleep, like you did with your sword, but we are not sleeping, we will never sleep now, sleep is for the living … sing … sing … sing us a song of swords and sorrow …_

The Silmaril was heavy in his hand. It did not belong to him, not anymore. With all his might, Maglor threw it into the sea, and then he crumpled upon the beach. There was no plan. No war. No king to fight for. Nothing, except the sea and the sky and the burning guilt.

The Ancient Ones chattered in their deep, dark caves.

On the beach, Maglor began to change. Claws sprouted from his arms. On his back grew an armoured plate, which soon took on the shape of a shell. Two legs turned into six, and when the transformation was over, Maglor Fëanorion was gone, and a large crab had taken his place.

Now there was no more guilt. No more thoughts of sadness. He had shed them like a crab would shed its old shell. Maglor gave the sun one last, wistful look, before he left the ruined Beleriand behind and scurried into the deep, blue sea.

A king’s son, Maglor had been, but never himself a king. Here, in the vast kingdom at the bottom of the sea, he came into his own. His domain stretched from Lindon in the East to the shores of Aman in the West, from the Grinding Ice in the North, all the way to the warmer seas of the Southern Lands, where few of the Eldar had yet travelled. All mariners who were lost at sea, sooner or later arrived in his halls, where he would welcome them and gnaw at their bones, grinding them into fine sand.

Crablor had come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crablor TL;DR: A meme started by me and a couple of other people, which has taken on a life of its own. Basically Maglor turns into a crab cryptid and lives in the sea after the events of the Silmarillion.


	3. This Is The Way The World Ends

The beach was empty, save for a few clumps of rotting sea weed. It did not look like the end of the world at all. No meteors, no fire and thunder, no blood raining from the sky. Just nothing, the sea and the beach. And Him. The dark-robed figure stood knee-deep in water, waves lapping against his black cloak, and yet the water didn’t seem to touch him at all. He had all the time in the world, and he was waiting.

From the depths of the sea, he emerged. Immortal and proud, a remnant of the days when heroes walked the earth, fate’s carefully woven web shaking with the weight of their footsteps. He had slumbered for thousands of years, waking only too feed, to gnaw upon the roots of the mountains, to carve cities of stone and sand into the seabottom. Sooner or later, everyone made their way down to his halls, where he welcomed them and feasted upon their flesh and bones. But no more. The world that was, had come to an end, and he felt a far-off call. Strangely familiar, it was; reminding him of a different time and a different life. It tugged at him, brought him up towards the surface, up towards the pale sun that shone in the hazy sky even now when everything else had come to an end.

Monstrous was the creature that lumbered onto the beach, past the dark-robed figure. Claws large enough to pinch a grown man in half, shell the size of a small house. And yet, as it emerged from the sea, the creature seemed to shrink. Surrounded by a soft glow, its claws vanished, its six legs dwindled to just two. Soon a tall man stood where the monster had been. He had a kingly bearing, and from his eyes shone an almost unearthly light.

“Welcome, my child,” said the dark-robed figure. “You have travelled a long way. It is time for you to come home.”

The man did not reply. He watched the waves washing against the shore for a while, then lifted his gaze to the horizon.

“This is the end?” His voice was soft, musical. “I suppose I expected more.”

A grey ship was gliding towards the two people on the beach. The dark-robed figure gestured towards it.

“Come home, Makalaurë. Your family is waiting for you.”

“Is all forgiven, then?”

“Atonement has been made.”

And so the two figures boarded the ship. Makalaurë seated himself cross-legged at the prow, while the dark-robed figure stood unmoving at the stern, steering the grey ship out to sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _En natt, -- og ingen kjenner natt og time …._  
_Til rors, Columbus, i det bleke gry!_  
\- Gunnar Reiss-Andersen


	4. Remembrance

Others moved on. They grieved for their dead, sang songs of mourning in the Gardens of Remembrance, amongst the white roses Yavanna had planted and Nienna had watered with her silvery tears, and in the end they went on with their lives, a little less joyously, perhaps, but nevertheless they went on. Nerdanel did not. She tried to work, tried pouring the turmoil she felt into the pure white marble, but all she was left with was his face staring back at her. Her life was frozen in time, like the sculptures she carved. She forgot to eat, she forgot to sleep. Her hair, once a fiery halo, hung limply down her back, until one day she grabbed a pair of scissors and cut it short. When she did sleep, she would wake in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, as if roused by a faraway, familiar voice calling her name.

There were eight sculptures in her workshop now. Life-sized, their features heart-achingly familiar, their expressions distant, dreamlike. When the ninth sculpture – a young child, whose heritage was stamped all over his face – was done, Nerdanel carefully put it next to the others, closed up the workshop, and slept a dreamless sleep, undisturbed by the far-off voices of the dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Too short, but I'm not quite sure how to approach Nerdanel as a character yet - she doesn't spring fully formed onto the page in first person POV the way Fëanor does.


End file.
